Milton's Bad Day
by John Hama
Summary: What if Private Investigator Arbogast had been just slightly more persuasive..? Characters and situations belong to Universal Studios, Shamley Productions, Robert Bloch, Hitch, et al...


"Psycho", its characters and situations belong not to me, but to Universal Studios, Shamley Productions, Robert Bloch, ol' Hitch, et al...

Milton's Bad Day

By John M. Mulhern

Highway 113 – Fairvale CA

Private Investigator Arbogast stepped out into the cool dusk air and, having strolled to the corner of the low, single-story building, glanced back at the man who had preceded him out the door. The slight, dark-haired fellow, burdened by an armful of fresh linen, had almost opened the door to cabin #1 when he'd caught himself. As he moved on to the second of the motel's twelve rooms a small, knowing smile briefly touched the detective's lips, though his sharp eyes remained hard and cruel.

"Thanks for the info, friend," Arbogast thought to himself. "The Crane girl stayed in cabin #1 – its linen has already been changed." Turning on his heel, the round-faced P.I., stiff from two long days on the road but confident that his journey had brought him to exactly where he needed to be, glanced up at the old house on the hill. The much older structure, dark, weathered and gloomy, seemed to glare down at its younger companion with a kind of protective malice. It looked like something out of an old… Suddenly, something in an upstairs window caught Arbogast's trained eye. "Is that…why, yes – there's definitely somebody up there!" Sitting motionless in front of a second-story window, a lone figure kept vigil: the final piece to the puzzle.

"Gotcha," he thought, self-satisfaction threatening to break his casual facade. "Either you're a blonde from Phoenix with sticky fingers or I've been in this business for too long."

"Uh, change your mind?" called a cheery voice from behind. Arbogast turned to see Mr. Norman Bates, the motel's manager, approach – just one big, walking nervous smile. "You know, I think I must have one of those faces you just can't help believing," he continued, coming to a stop just a bit too close for the investigator's comfort. Arbogast smiled back just the same. "Might as well get this dance started," he thought. "Is anyone at home?" he asked, all innocence, and watched as Bates' eyes flicked in the direction of the house, though the motel itself blocked his view.

"No."

"Oh? There's somebody sitting up in the window." Snap goes the trap.

"N..n..no there isn't."

"Well, sure – go ahead, take a look."

"Oh, that…that must be my mother. She, she's an, uh, inavlid – an…in-va-lid." That nervous smile again. "Uh, it's uh, it's *practically* like living alone." Classic dodge. Explaining away a woman as 'my sweet old white-haired mother' probably went back to caveman days, Arbogast reflected wryly.

"Oh, I see," he said in understatement; he'd suspected that exposing this scheme would be like pulling teeth. A poor, ol' country boy like…Norman, was it?...couldn't have stood a chance against a beautiful, sophisticated city girl with big eyes and a hard luck story, much less against a seasoned pro like himself. The detective almost felt sorry for the young rustic, but it had been a long day. He allowed a short, frustrated sigh to preface his next angle.

"Now if this, uh, girl – Marion Crane were here you wouldn't be hiding her, would you?"

"No."

"Not even if she paid you well?" Smile - keep it light; the agreeable confidant will always outdo the inquisitor.

"No." The young man's chuckle never touched his eyes.

"Let's just say for the, uh, just for the sake of argument she wanted you to, uh, gallantly protect her." I can't make this much easier, pal. "You'd know that you were being used…that, uh – you wouldn't be made a fool of, would you?"

"But, uh, I'm *not* a fool."

"Well, I…"

"And I'm not capable of *being* fooled – not, not even by a woman!"

"Well, this is not a slur on your manhood." Some fire in the boy after all – shouldn't have gotten critical… "I'm sorry…"

"Ah, let's put it this way: she might have fooled me, but she didn't fool my mother."

Arbogast was never one to refuse a fresh finger-hold when he felt his grip slipping. The manager had chosen to reintroduce "mother" to the conversation and, whether genuine or counterfeit, the investigator was eager to capitalize on her.

"Oh, well then your mother met her. Could I, could I talk to your mother?"

He watched as an odd change came over the young man. The brief flash of anger he'd displayed at being challenged disappeared to be replaced by…well, almost nothing at all – a flatness of demeanor that felt to the detective as if a door had been quietly shut in his face. Arbogast was accustomed to people being cautious with him but never with such profundity. The young man's gaze seemed to focus on something internal for a brief moment as he replied.

"No. Uh, as I told you she's, she's confined."

"Yes," the P.I. began, not about to be stonewalled or thrown off his game at this stage, "…but just for a few minutes, that's all. There might be some hint that you missed out on – you know, sick old women are usually pretty sharp and just, just for a moment…"

"Uh, mister, mister…mister Arbogast…"

"I wouldn't disturb her."

"I, I think I…I think I've talked to you all I want to."

"Yes, but just for a minute, no more, and I'll be on my way. Promise."

A deep, closed-mouthed sigh slowly escaped Mr. Bates' nose as some veiled conflict seemed to play out inside him. Finally, and as suddenly as if a marionette's line had been pulled taut, his head snapped up and he looked sharply into the older man's eyes.

"All right."

The Parlor

Milton Arbogast felt as if he'd been conducted into a Currier & Ives painting – only an interior scene and far, far from Christmas. The decor of the sitting room was, paradoxically, an orderly clutter of baroque effects and the sort of by-gone furnishings that would surely fetch his annual income on the collector's market. The walls, thick with hangings and drapery around the lintel and windows, held numerous paintings – one or two large pieces overseeing a clutch of smaller subjects, some no bigger than Arbogast's fist. A few hid within massive square frames, others oval or round – most held images of Victorian domesticity or classical Grecian subjects. Porcelain and bronze statuary depicting cherubs and foxes peered from dark corners. And for all this tangle of geometry the detective's eye could make out not a speck of dust. He wondered how much of it was real.

While he'd been following the manager up the tumbled, switchback stairway to the main residence he'd become aware of an odd, stifling sensation that seemed to grow as he advanced. It was a warm enough evening, surely, and perhaps he *was* a bit out of shape, but the change in atmosphere as he climbed seemed remarkable all the same. By the time he'd mounted the brittle wooden porch it was almost like walking through honey. And there had been something else. Mr. Arbogast was by no means a superstitious man, certainly not a whimsical one, but his work as a contract investigator had developed in him a keen awareness of his surroundings. This sensitivity had paid dividends frequently, even saved life or limb on several occasions. On that evening, in the shadow of that house, it confirmed for him that he and Mr. Bates were not alone. Arbogast was, after all, a watcher – and such men often know when they are being watched.

Entering the house – keeps the door unlocked, useful to remember – brought no relief from the warm, smothering feeling; the air inside was as stale and still as a week old biscuit and the P.I. wouldn't have been surprised to learn that the windows were painted shut. There was a faint smell of lilac…

Mr. Bates had asked him to wait in the parlor while he went up to inform "mother" that she had a visitor. Arbogast had heard him begin to mount the steps behind him, then stop and return. "Please don't, uh…just don't touch anything," the manager said in a low tone before withdrawing back to the foyer and taking the steps two at a time.

Arbogast took a few steps himself into this room that somehow *felt* smaller than it looked. Neither his footfalls nor an experimental cough brought the slightest echo from the walls – they seemed to absorb every noise and stoically reassert the room's silence. Arbogast shook off the mad, fleeting notion that the painted and sculpted figures were in some way surprised to see him, or indeed *anyone* from Outside. He walked over to a small, elaborately-carved wooden end table serving an overstuffed sofa – Victorian? Edwardian?...never could tell the difference – and examined the curios it held. Momentarily forgetting the manager's admonition, the investigator lifted a small, cunningly made porcelain turtledove out of its nest of dried baby's breath. He smiled despite himself as he examined the bird's wide-eyed…

"In MY house?!! What was it you were thinking, boy?! Or WEREN'T you thinking…to allow a…a STRANGER to trick his way into our home – let him into my purse too, I suppose! AND my hope chest, AND my dresser! Get him OUT, fool, before he robs us BLIND!"

The voice that crackled down from the second floor was rusted iron – keen, powerful and frightening in its hysteria. Arbogast could just make out Mr. Bates' own small, muffled voice in reply – pleading, soothing, the words themselves lost before they reached his ears. He mouthed a silent curse as his eyes found the turtledove at his feet, broken neatly in two halves.

"You'd believe any old story, wouldn't you?!" the woman continued acidly. "You're too gullible, boy – you don't know what's out in the world! LIARS! Liars and THIEVES, lusting after what's ours, what's MINE! But you're blind to what's plain to an imbecile! Or is it something else?" The voice took on a cruel, taunting tone. "Norman's found a friend, has he? Ha HA! Is that it – someone to talk to? Poor lonely Norman wants to talk _to_ a man – LIKE a man?! Well I know what men talk ABOUT – filth and…and FILTHY cravings!"

Almost without realizing it Arbogast, being curious by both nature and occupation and now struck by an arresting fascination at this glimpse into rural strife, had made his way halfway up the staircase in an effort to make out both sides of the squabble. The line separating a private eye from an out-and-out voyeur was sometimes tenuous, dependent as it was upon the often shifting intent of the observer. It took all of an instant for Arbogast to decide that he had enough professional intent to justify his eavesdropping. He climbed another step.

"Moth…mother, there's no reason to get worked up," came the manager's voice faintly through…yes, the first door to the left at the top of the stairs. "He only needs to hear that…that you barely saw the girl – and, and…and only from your window. Just that and he, well, he'll go away. And no one will follow, you'll see. You only saw her from the window. You can do that, mother, can't you?"

Still faint – the voice just on the edge of hearing. Arbogast climbed another step.

"Can't you? Can't you?" parroted the mother. At this point Arbogast conceded that he'd made the wrong call about the woman's identity. To think that the kid had to live with such a spiteful and plainly ill woman – his earlier sympathy for the young man deepened. His own troubles just then didn't extend far beyond a tricky larceny case and a rental car with a broken driver-side door. He made a note to count his blessings later. "No, no I WON'T see your friend! I've seen him enough from right here, and here I'll stay! And I'll not suffer him to come up! Would you bring a stranger into your mother's bedchamber?" at this, her voice became quieter and somehow more dangerous. "I don't think you would approve, Norman…"

"Please, mother – please just be reasonable! I…"

"Ha! He came to find a woman and instead he found a FOOL! Get OUT! And get HIM out too! I'll not tell you again! If he hasn't…"

The third step from the top let out a sharp, staccato creak under his weight.

Arbogast's face twisted into a tight grimace of self-recrimination as all went dead quiet in the room beyond the door. For three seconds. What followed *that* was as frightening a clamor as the detective had ever heard – a brittle shriek of wordless rage was followed by the sound of breaking glass and a stumbling of footfalls that ended with a jarring impact against the heavy-paneled door. The startled investigator fell back against the opposite wall despite himself, nearly knocking another of those pictures from its nail. He groped wordlessly for mea-culpas and apologies as the sounds of bedlam continued; clearly, the manager was having a very trying time calming the woman or, indeed, keeping her on that side of the door. Through it all, Arbogast was impressed at the son's consistent deferment to his mother – never interrupting her mad tirade but only speaking pleading words of comfort and forbearance when she stopped for breath.

Deciding that discretion was the better part of resolve, and realizing that any chance of interviewing the poor soul was as dead as the motel business on this stretch of old highway, the P.I. was about to retreat down the stairs when something caught his eye. Straight ahead at the top of the stairs, at the end of a short corridor, was a half-open door. The room beyond was bathed in soft moonlight and in that dim illumination something stirred, casting a fleeting shadow onto the door's face. Arbogast, feeling quite pulled in two directions, glanced anxiously at the door to the mother's bedroom from which the manager's soothing whispering could be heard alternating with his charge's rasping sobs and violent demands. He reckoned that he had a good minute, maybe more before that door opened. He couldn't be sure that the shadow he'd seen was that of a woman, but he couldn't be sure that it wasn't. He'd come this far. In for a penny…

Taking care to avoid the noisy stair Arbogast mounted the second floor, strode up a small pair of passage-steps and down the short length of hall. With the scent of victory in his nostrils he cautiously pushed the door further open and stepped inside.

The Master Bath

The moonlight, coming through the open upper sash of a small window, revealed a bathroom, not the guestroom that the detective had anticipated. He took a few breaths, waiting for his eyes to adjust and listening for any sign that he wasn't alone – he *had* seen a shadow move, he was sure of it. Passing over the shapes of basin and toilet his gaze fell upon the bath itself. A translucent shower curtain was drawn completely across its length, making it the only feasible hiding place in the room.

"Ms. Crane..?" the investigator ventured, somewhat surprised at how coarsely it came out. Stepping over to the bath, he reached for the curtain. Several things then happened at once. His foot caught a wet spot on the tiling, slipping awkwardly and forcing him to grab at the curtain for support. He missed. Landing hard on his hip his eyes were then dazzled as the bathroom light was switched on and a cactus wren, which had been perched quietly on the shower curtain rod, erupted in a flurry of wings and quickly exited through the unscreened window. Mr. Bates glowered angrily down at him.

"What d'you think you're *doing?!*" the manager said, his barely controlled voice a study in outrage and fear. "I told…I told you to wait in the parlor! Mother's…she's very sensitive! She's not used to company. You shouldn't've come *up* here – I never should've brought you at all. She won't s..s..sleep tonight! And, and that means *I* won't sleep!"

"I'm terribly embarrassed, Mr. Bates," said Arbogast, feeling about two feet tall. "I thought I saw something up here and I, well, I had this crazy notion it was the Crane girl. I really can't apologize enough. Please, please offer my sincere regrets to your mother."

"Just go! Just, just, just get out of our house! And I don't…"

Arbogast was hunched over, painfully struggling to his feet as a clattering hail of small metal pieces fell about him. Rings – gold and silver, some with semi-precious stones, mixed with art deco bracelets and long, beaded flapper necklaces noisily cascaded across the tile. These were joined by the manager's body as it slowly folded itself to the floor, almost silently, neatly, as if to contrast with the spilled finery. The detective, back on the floor himself, watched in stunned horror as blood from an ugly head wound flowed across the delicate features of the young man and pooled upon the floor, mingling with the treasure.

The last echoes of the spill had died to silence when Arbogast looked up at an elderly, steel-haired woman standing in the doorway, clutching the ornate lid of a bronze jewelry box. Her wide eyes regarded the still figure on the floor with a mix of distaste and profound confusion; she didn't seem to see the investigator at all. After an endless moment her bony fingers loosened, allowing the heavy antique lid, formed into a pair of crossed hands, to join its base at her feet.

Arbogast, still quite stunned and unsure of how to respond to these developments, felt a curious detachment – as though he were watching a ghastly late-night teleplay. He watched as Mrs. Bates cautiously bent down and slowly adopted a painful looking crouch over her son's form. She placed her hands, gnarled and strong as willow-root, upon his back and shook once. Twice. When a third time brought no response she gave a small nod of acknowledgment. She then looked directly at Arbogast for the first time, her face now level with his and close enough for him to catch her perfume. Lilac.

"I got him, Norman," she said. "I will…NOT…abide trespassers!"

"I…I'm not…" A long, deliberate breath. "I'm not Norman."

Mrs. Bates leaned closer and placed a gentle hand upon the investigator's wrist, leaving a warm, wet stain. Eyes of madness looked deeply into his.

"…oh, yes you are.

I'd know my boy…anywhere."

THE END


End file.
